Edgar Hoffmann Price (July 3, 1898 – June 18, 1988) was an
American writer of popular fiction (he was a self-titled "fictioneer") for the
pulp magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
marketplace.
["Price, E. Hoffmann" in Server Lee. ''Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers''. New York: Facts on File, 2002. (p. 214-215).] He collaborated with
H. P. Lovecraft on "
Through the Gates of the Silver Key".
Biography
Price was born at
Fowler, California. During his early years, he became interested in China as a result of his interactions with a Chinese salesman in his hometown. As a form of punishment, his mother once threatened to leave Price with him. He did not see this as a punishment. His interest in China also had a
sexual aspect. His wife later noted that "Oriental women fascinate
im.
Originally intending to be a career soldier, Price graduated from the
United States Military Academy at
West Point. He served with the American military in
Mexico and the
Philippines, before being sent to
France with the
American Expeditionary Force
The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. It fought alon ...
in
France during
World War I.
After returning to the United States, he moved to Manhattan and began to write for pulp magazines.
He was a champion fencer and boxer, an amateur
Orientalist, and a student of the
Arabic language; science-fiction author
Jack Williamson, in his 1984 autobiography ''Wonder's Child'', called E. Hoffmann Price a "real live soldier of fortune".
In his literary career, Hoffmann Price produced fiction for a wide range of publications, from ''
Argosy
Argosy or The Argosy may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Argosy'' (magazine), an American pulp magazine 1882–1978 and revived 1990–1994, 2004–2006
* ''Argosy'' (UK magazine), three British magazines
* Argosy spaceship in ''Escap ...
'' to ''
Terror Tales'', from ''Speed Detective'' to ''Spicy Mystery Stories.'' Yet he was most readily identified as a ''
Weird Tales'' writer, one of the group who wrote regularly for editor
Farnsworth Wright
Farnsworth Wright (July 29, 1888 – June 12, 1940) was the editor of the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' during the magazine's heyday, editing 179 issues from November 1924 to March 1940. Jack Williamson called Wright "the first great fantasy ...
, a group that included Lovecraft,
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906June 11, 1936) was an American writer. He wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subge ...
, and
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Algernon Charles Swinburne ...
. Price published 24 solo stories in ''Weird Tales'' between 1925 and 1950, plus three collaborations with
Otis Adelbert Kline, and his works with Lovecraft, noted above.
His first sale was to ''Droll Stories'' in 1924, followed almost immediately by the first of scores of acceptances by ''Weird Tales'', "The Rajah's Gift" (January 1925).
"The Stranger from Kurdistan", published in 1925, was another early story to appear in ''
Weird Tales''.
This story which featured a dialogue between a certain personage and
Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...
, was criticised by some readers as blasphemous but proved popular with ''Weird Tales'' readers. (Lovecraft professed to find it especially powerful). "The Infidel's Daughter" (1927), a
satire on the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
, also angered some Southern readers, but Wright defended the story.
Price worked in a range of popular genres—including science fiction, horror, crime, and fantasy—but he was best known for adventure stories with Oriental settings and atmosphere. Price also contributed to Farnsworth Wright's short-lived magazine ''
The Magic Carpet'' (1930–34), along with Kline, Howard, Smith, and other ''Weird Tales'' regulars. For ''Spicy Western Stories'', Price wrote a series about a libidinous cowboy, Simon Bolivar Grimes.
For ''Clues Detective Stories'', Price created a series centering on Pâwang Ali, a Malaysian detective in Singapore.
Like many other pulp-fiction writers, Price could not support himself and his family on his income from literature. Living in
New Orleans in the 1930s, he worked for a time for the
Union Carbide Corporation
Union Carbide Corporation is an American chemical corporation wholly owned subsidiary (since February 6, 2001) by Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers befor ...
. Nonetheless he managed to travel widely and maintain friendships with many other pulp writers, including Kline and
Edmond Hamilton. On a trip to Texas in the mid-1930s, Price was the only pulp writer to meet
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906June 11, 1936) was an American writer. He wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subge ...
face to face. He was also the only man known to have met Howard and also
H. P. Lovecraft and
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Algernon Charles Swinburne ...
(the great "Triumvirate" of ''Weird Tales'' writers) in person. Over the course of his long life, Price made reminiscences of many significant figures in pulp fiction, Howard, Lovecraft, and Hamilton among them.
By 1951, he was living in
Redwood City, California. His interest in astrology led him to develop a connection with Sri Ram Mahra, a Tibetan theologian.
Late in life, Price experienced a major literary resurgence. In the 1970s and '80s he issued a series of SF, fantasy, and adventure novels, published in paperback; ''
The Devil Wives of Li Fong'' (1979) is one noteworthy example. He also had published two collections of his pulp stories during his lifetime--''
Strange Gateways'' and ''
Far Lands, Other Days
''Far Lands, Other Days'' is a collection of fantasy, horror and mystery short stories by author E. Hoffmann Price. It was released in 1975 by Carcosa in an edition of 2,593 copies of which 615 copies, that were pre-ordered, were signed by the a ...
''. During this period, Price corresponded frequently with the novelist and poet
Richard L. Tierney
Richard Louis Tierney (August 7, 1936 – February 1, 2022) was an American writer, poet and scholar of H. P. Lovecraft, probably best known for his heroic fantasy, including his series co-authored (with David C. Smith) of Red Sonja novels, fe ...
.
Price was one of the first speakers at San Francisco's
Maltese Falcon Society The Maltese Falcon Society is an organization for admirers of Dashiell Hammett, his 1930 novel '' The Maltese Falcon,'' and hardboiled mystery books and writers in general. Founded in San Francisco in 1981, the organization is no longer active in th ...
in 1981.
He received the
World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984. A collection of his literary memoirs, ''Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear, Fictioneers & Others'', was published posthumously in 2001. His writing friends and colleagues included
Richard L. Tierney
Richard Louis Tierney (August 7, 1936 – February 1, 2022) was an American writer, poet and scholar of H. P. Lovecraft, probably best known for his heroic fantasy, including his series co-authored (with David C. Smith) of Red Sonja novels, fe ...
,
H. P. Lovecraft,
August Derleth,
Jack Williamson,
Edmond Hamilton,
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906June 11, 1936) was an American writer. He wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subge ...
,
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Algernon Charles Swinburne ...
,
Henry Kuttner
Henry Kuttner (April 7, 1915 – February 3, 1958) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Early life
Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915. Kuttner (1829–1903) and Amelia Bush (c. 1834–1911), the ...
,
Seabury Quinn,
Otis Adelbert Kline,
Ralph Milne Farley,
Robert Spencer Carr
Robert Spencer Carr (March 26, 1909 – April 28, 1994) was an American literature, American writer of science fiction and Fantasy fiction, fantasy. He sold his first story to ''Weird Tales'' at age 15. At age 17 his novel, ''The Rampant ...
, and
Farnsworth Wright
Farnsworth Wright (July 29, 1888 – June 12, 1940) was the editor of the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' during the magazine's heyday, editing 179 issues from November 1924 to March 1940. Jack Williamson called Wright "the first great fantasy ...
among others.
Price was a
Buddhist and a supporter of the
Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
*Republican Party (Liberia)
* Republican Part ...
.
He died at
Redwood City, California, in 1988.
H. P. Lovecraft
When Lovecraft visited New Orleans in June 1932, Howard telegraphed Price to alert him to the visitor's presence, and the two writers spent much of the following week together. A disproven myth claims that Price took Lovecraft to a New Orleans brothel, where Lovecraft was amused to find that several of the employees there were fans of his work; the same apocryphal story was originally told about
Seabury Quinn sometime earlier.
The meeting of Price and Lovecraft began a correspondence that continued until Lovecraft's death. They even proposed at one time forming a writing team whose output would, "conservatively estimated, run to a million words a month", in Lovecraft's whimsical prediction. They planned to use the pseudonym "Etienne Marmaduke de Marigny" for their collaboration; a similar name was used for a character in "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", the only collaboration of Price and Lovecraft to transpire. Another collaboration between Lovecraft and Hoffmann Price is the short tale "Tarbis of the Lake".
That story had its origins in Price's enthusiasm for an earlier Lovecraft tale. "One of my favorite HPL stories was, and still is, '
The Silver Key'," Price wrote in a 1944 memoir. "In telling him of the pleasure I had had in rereading it, I suggested a sequel to account for
protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
Randolph Carter
Randolph Carter is a recurring fictional character in H. P. Lovecraft's fiction and is, presumably, an alter ego of Lovecraft himself. The character first appears in "The Statement of Randolph Carter", a short story Lovecraft wrote in 1919 bas ...
's doings after his disappearance." After convincing an apparently reluctant Lovecraft to collaborate on such a sequel, Price wrote a 6,000-word draft in August 1932; in April 1933, Lovecraft produced a 14,000-word version that left unchanged, by Price's estimate, "fewer than fifty of my original words," though ''
An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia
''An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia'' is a reference work written by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. It covers the life and work of American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. First published in 2001 by Greenwood Publishing Group, it was reis ...
'' reports that Lovecraft "kept as many of Price's conceptions as possible, as well as some of his language."
[Joshi and Schultz, p. 213.]
In any case, Price was pleased with the result, writing that Lovecraft "was right of course in discarding all but the basic outline. I could only marvel that he had made so much of my inadequate and bungling start."
[Carter, p. 94.] The story appeared under both authors' bylines in the July 1934 issue of ''Weird Tales''; Price's draft was published as "The Lord of Illusion" in ''
Crypt of Cthulhu'' No. 10 in 1982.
Price visited Lovecraft in Providence in the summer of 1933. When he and a mutual friend showed up at Lovecraft's house with a six-pack of beer, the teetotaling Lovecraft is said to have remarked, "And what are you going to do with so ''much'' of it?"
Bibliography
Science fiction
*''Operation Misfit'' (1980)
*''Operation Longlife'' (1983)
*''Operation Exile'' (1985)
*''Operation Isis'' (1986)
Fantasy
*''
The Devil Wives of Li Fong'' (1979)
*''The Jade Enchantress'' (1982)
Collections
*''
Strange Gateways'' (1967)
*''
Far Lands, Other Days
''Far Lands, Other Days'' is a collection of fantasy, horror and mystery short stories by author E. Hoffmann Price. It was released in 1975 by Carcosa in an edition of 2,593 copies of which 615 copies, that were pre-ordered, were signed by the a ...
'' (1975)
*''Three Cliff Cragin Stories'' (1987)
*''Satan's Daughter and Other Tales from the Pulps'' (2004)
*''Valley of the Tall Gods and Other Tales from the Pulps'' (2006)
Nonfiction
*''The Weird Tales Story'' (1999)
*''
Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear, Fictioneers and Others'' (2001)
Notes
References
*S. T. Joshi and David Schultz, ''An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia'', Hippocampus Press (New York), 2004.
*Lin Carter, ''Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos'', Ballantine Books (New York), 1974.
Further reading
*''An Interview with E. Hoffman Price''. ''The Diversifier'' 4, No 3.
ate to be confirmed
Ate or ATE may refer to:
Organizations
* Active Training and Education Trust, a not-for-profit organization providing "Superweeks", holidays for children in the United Kingdom
* Association of Technical Employees, a trade union, now called the Nat ...
Interviewer - Fredrick J. Mayer.
* Murray, Will. "The Late E. Hoffman Price". ''Studies in Weird Fiction'' 4 (Fall 1988) 32-33.
External links
*
*
E. Hoffmann Priceat the ''
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo, Locus and British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared in 1979 and 1993. A third, continuou ...
''
E. Hoffmann Priceat the ''
Encyclopedia of Fantasy''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Price, E. Hoffman
1898 births
1988 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American fantasy writers
American science fiction writers
Western (genre) writers
American mystery writers
American male novelists
American short story writers
Cthulhu Mythos writers
American Buddhists
World Fantasy Award-winning writers
Writers from California
American male short story writers
People from Fowler, California
20th-century American male writers